Is America really ready for a President Hickenlooper? If elected, he would only
be the second US president with a four-syllable last name. And, frankly,
"Hickenlooper" is a way goofier name than "Eisenhower".
(Ref: Words
With K in Them Are Funny.)

(But, namewise, I don't see any US politician rivalling a recent
president of Madagascar,
Hery
Rajaonarimampianina. That's a good way to keep your name out of the
headlines: make it too long to fit.)

Some events, such as the Bilderberg Meetings in Turin, Italy — a gathering of high-powered corporate executives and political leaders from around the world — are so exclusive and secret that “neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s) nor of any other participant may be revealed,” according to the group’s website.

Much of the event is paid for by its sponsors, which in
2018 included Fiat Chrysler, PTI’s complaint shows.

PTI also
alleges that Hickenlooper accepted a chauffeured Maserati limousine and
other amenities at the June 2018 meetings — he was caught on
camera at the airport saying he had “no official statement” about
why he was there, but said he paid for the trip himself — including
transportation via private jet that PTI estimates to have cost as much
as $10,000.

“Bilderberg is a luxurious, corporately paid event to discuss
international affairs amongst global business and political leaders,”
the complaint says. “This is precisely the type of event [Colorado
ethics rule] Amendment 41 is intended to restrict.”

33. "The news about me is largely phony. It's false. Even sometimes they'll say, 'Sources say.' There is no source, in many cases -- in cases there is."

Cillizza rebuts:

Again, this is about Donald Trump not liking the news. Not about the
news being "largely phony." And the idea that mainstream media organizations make up sources is beyond ridiculous.

Yeah, probably. But how would we know? It's not as if CNN's
hunger
for scoops doesn't cause it to mislead its viewers.

At Spectator USA, Freddy Gray looks at Beto:

Unlike Obama in 2008, however, the Beto hype of 2018 feels labored, even needy — a desperate crush for progressives who have lost faith in the democratic progress. Women and gay men compete to express their lust for him, as if he were in a boy band. After Beto posted a video of himself cooking a meal, social media went berserk. ‘Beto O’Rourke is cutting up flank steak over on Instagram in case anyone asks how it is I got pregnant,’ tweeted a man called Evan Ross Katz. Most other responses are too filthy for these pages; all seem contrived.

O’Rourke is more than a bit phony, too — all hat and no cattle, as
Texans say. Take the name Beto. It’s an Hispanic abbreviation of Robert,
though O’Rourke is of Irish descent. A Ted Cruz campaign jingle mocked
him for it: ‘I remember reading stories, liberal Robert wanted to fit in
/ So he changed his name to Beto and hid it with a grin.’ A curious
irony there: Ted’s real name, Rafael, is Hispanic, but he too wanted to
fit in.

Brown, who is potentially looking to challenge the president directly in
2020, refuses to be typecast—or to cede blue-collar politics to
Republicans. “Populism and patriotism are not racist, they are not
anti-Semitic. They don’t push some people down in order to lift some
people up. They don’t appeal to the darker side of human nature,” Brown
tells me. “We should not yield the hallowed ground of patriotism to
extremists. We see that in Columbus, and we see that especially in the
White House. You don’t practice a form of phony populism where you turn people against one another.”

Can you still call yourself a populist without railing against shadowy
elites conspiring to rig the game against the little people? Can you
win the nomination in today's Democratic Party without at least
pretending to do that?

And maybe we can slide a belated Michael Ramirez Thanksgiving cartoon in
here:

Disclaimers:
Unquoted opinions expressed herein are solely those of the
blogger.

Pun Salad is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates
Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a
means for the blogger to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.